Morlanwelz Incident in Belgium 27 November 2017

[whole diary]

[SandTEngineer]

Not seen this very serious incident mentioned before:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morlanwelz_train_collision_and_runaway

Morlanwelz train collision and runaway

Level crossing
At 07:25 CET^▸ (Controlled Emission Toilet) (06:25 UTC) on 27 November 2017, a passenger train collided with a car on a level crossing at Morlanwelz, Hainaut, Belgium. A fire broke out, damaging the leading carriage of Class AM96 electric multiple unit 449, which formed the passenger train with unit 442. The driver of the car had managed to escape from the vehicle before it was hit by the train. There were no injuries on the train. The fire was quickly extinguished. A signal and 12 metres (39 ft) of track were damaged in the accident.  A bus replacement service was put in place between Charleroi-South and Mons. The line was subsequently scheduled to remain closed between Oubourg and Charleroi-South on 29 November.

Runaway and collision
During recovery operations at about 20:00, the three carriages of unit 449 detached from unit 442 train at Piéton the unit ran away towards La Louvière subsequently striking four Infrabel employees who were repairing the track at Morlanwelz, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from Piéton.  Two were killed and two were seriously injured. An attempt to stop the train by cutting the power supply was unsuccessful.  The train continued to run away and then collided with another passenger train at Strépy-Bracquegnies at about 20:20 having passed through three stations and over five level crossings and travelling for 14 kilometres (8.7 mi). The second train involved was formed of two Class AM96 units, including unit 483.  Five people were injured.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Wow!  That is an absolutely awful chain of events. 

[trainer]

Very disturbing indeed and what a lot of personal grief and life changes for the railway employees and their families as well as the shock to those involved in the original incident.

Interestingly in the current edition of Today's Railways Europe (Issue 264 December 2017) the new CEO^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) of SNCB (Belgian National Railways) Sophie Dutordoir is reported as saying

...she is shocked by the high number of industrial accidents - four times higher than in similar enterprises

The rest of that news item is interesting if you want to see just how we compare to at least one other European system which seems to have many similar (and some worse) issues despite being dominated by a nationalised rail company.